Archive for the ‘House’ Category

Five years after Hurricane Sandy devastated the cooperative beachfront community of Breezy Point, Queens, the project built upon a lot that had been reduced to sand is complete. Houses in Breezy Point are set close together and linked by pedestrian paths; cars are confined to lots at the periphery. The client’s site was unusually wide, with 68 feet of south-facing beach frontage. Flood regulations required building at least six feet off of the ground, while co-op regulations put the maximum building height at 28 feet. The co-op also required a setback from the lot line of 32 feet at the lot’s widest point. The resulting building envelope was much shallower than wide, allowing nearly every room to have an ocean view. One of the primary design strategies was stepping the south-facing facade to allow windows to wrap corners. That created diagonal sightlines up and down the beach, framing vistas and visually expanding the interior spaces. Angled roof profiles and ceiling finishes also direct the eye upward and outward.

The brief from the client was simple and short “a house with more floor space and an exterior with striking appearance in contrast with the surrounding”. The old house was about 890 sqft of build-up area with road on the north side. It was a single storied house which had a small living room, dining room, two bedrooms with attached toilets and a small kitchen. The house was expanded to 1900 sqft.

New Zealand was the last landmass to be inhabited, and then deforested with unrivalled speed. Its new cleared landscapes are still so young they shift, when they fail new native trees grow. It might take a hundred years or more, but buildings that participate in this shift could one day inhabit near-original forest. This is something new, for New Zealand architecture was established and has remained in clearings. To inhabit its original forest landscape, architecture must understand existing context rather than generate new landscapes, it must be soft, patient and ready to change; as we exhibited at the 2015 Prague International Architecture Festival entitled Soft-Context:Soft-Architecture.

In the beginning, this house was planned as a weekend residence, but with the progress of the project, the owners were enthusiastic about transforming it into a permanent home. So, certain sectors were expanded, but the original proposal of a white box supported on volumes of exposed concrete, remained.

Give suburbia a view and it develops an orientation. It expects to live toward the view, not behind it, and therefore assumes life will occur at the front. But with this convention those at the back lose their privacy to the street, their view or both. That, or their house becomes two storied in a search for a view. But with a prairie-like reserve behind, and encroaching suburbia out the front, the back isn’t always such a bad place to be. Can a one storey house not find and protect a view at the back of a subdivision?

“Casas Catalinas” are family homes located in Rio Ceballos, along the Córdoba mountain range and away from the city. They set up in 5000 square-foot lands.

The project seeks to provide home solutions to middle class young families that have access to social loans provided by the state. These 1185 square-foot houses have a limited budget and the main guidelines have to do with lively rooms, austere and detail less design, reducing construction costs.

The architecture and interior design of the house are the artwork of Shirli Zamir, the owner of the house, who has 14 years of experience at planning and designing working environments. During her work as a colleague at “Setter Architects”, she planned big and famous offices such as “Facebook”, “Algotec”, “Autodesk”, “Paloalto”, “Fiverr” and many more. Some of the projects planned by Shirli won local and international awards.

The ground lies right beside the water in the bay of Sejerø and the project’s shape is inspired by birds that fly over the bay. The building is located on the ground’s most comfortable position with regard to sun, shelter and orientation towards the water.The four main volumes make up the body of the summer cottage.They contain the guest an- nex and sauna, living room with access to the terrace, dining zone in extension of the kitchen-dining area and the master bedroom with en suite large bathroom. A glass corridor with views of both the sea and the arrival area connects the guest annex and the main building. The summer cottage is modular with a wooden structure, at roof and black, vertically-mounted pro le cladding. The at roof is coated with a green sedum roof, so that on arrival you immediately have contact with the Sejerø Bay and the horizon beyond.The terrain declines so the four main volumes are placed on the site with a facade line and garden wall that follows the lines of the terrain, while also providing natural shelter from the wind. Interior materials comprise oak parquet, design concrete ooring and a front door in solid oak.

A rock base is proposed in order to level and respond to the natural site’s slope. The shape of the house is simple and compact, with the purpose of having a standard building process, making its development economic, while accomplishing the local constructive/design requirements.